Signal to Noise

So there’s been a lot of hubbub about the shakeup at Skype, what with Zennstrom storming out and eBay’s executives apparently ready to bend over and take a huge charge to write off what they view as a poor investment in Skype.  Then, we’ve got all kinds of folks watching the proverbial sky falling as suddenly, the sticker shock we all expressed when eBay bought Skype to begin with finally sinks in: eBay got snookered.

Or did they?

Skype did what nobody else could do. They built an always-on network of basically useable VoIP nodes at a very low cost, with some clever, secretive engineering, and a nice tight package that sold it to the nerd crowd. Gizmo couldn’t do that; neither could Google Talk; neither could Yahoo.

But before we call the curtains for Skype, we need to re-examine what Skype’s position and technology actually DO for eBay. First of all, Skype-in-Java should’ve been implemented eons ago in order to give eBay a fluid web-delivery mechanism for their voice network. This would’ve enabled Skype for all eBay users (a HUGE market reach), even those that don’t have the native client installed on their PCs. Secondly, Skype has the potential to be the ultimate social networking platform, a place from which innumerable commerce opportunities can sprout. Yet we don’t see Skype at the centerpiece of anything resembling Facebook or MySpace. Rather, we see MySpace (and soon Facebook) attempting to render their own pathetic attempts at instant messaging. Skype, WHERE ARE YOU?

It became obvious sometime in 2005 that minute-stealing isn’t the end-all-be-all of Skype. Saving people a penny per minute on long distance isn’t a survivable business model because it relies on the assumption that the long distance system is always going to be the grave-robbing racket that it is today. When international LD rates disappear altogether in favor of unlimited data access plans, Skype’s business model goes up in smoke. Seriously, wouldn’t you rather talk on your cell phone than on Skype?

So Skype needs to look at the ways it can meaningfully interact with other web technologies in order to benefit people. Simply dissolving the distance barrier in order to further drive a drop in LD rates (which is what Skype is causing today)  isn’t going to work forever. It’s time for Skype to start working in the eBay framework. It’s time for Skype to go Java. It’s time for web developers to start using Skype as a de-facto method of voice and video communication.

Yes, it’s time for Skype to become ubiquitous. That means Skype needs to return to the drawing board and get innovation back at the front of its mission objectives.